Chapter 2: The Bièvre: Environmental History of the Seine’s only Parisian Affluent

The Bièvre has been an important influence on the development of the urban form of Paris and its periphery for over 2000 years. The history of the city’s protection, resources, production, land use, social order, and environmental activism are all associated with the evolution of the Bièvre during the two millennia it has existed alongside human inhabitation of the region.

 
Map by
Cassini showing entire length of Bièvre, eighteenth century

Among its 36 kilometer course, only 20 are today open to the sky, 11 are canalized under slabs outside of Paris, and the segments within the city flow within sewers or have been buried beneath embankments and urbanization.

Current plans to uncover interred segments of the Bièvre and rehabilitate in varying degrees its entire length can be traced to environmental activism beginning in the 1960s. Conception and implementation of these plans has been guided, in part, by interpretation of the stream’s past. Fundamental to all rehabilitation approaches is the idea that the stream has taken a variety of courses and served many diverse purposes. To characterize these different courses and purposes in stages highlights their reflection of the larger cultural forces that were in operation. Accordingly, interpretation of the Bièvre’s history reveals a great deal about evolving societal values over time.

Geologic context and Pre-history

The history of the Bièvre illuminates the evolving state of increasing human intervention on the form of the land. Over time the stream became allied less with the natural landscape and more with the hands of human necessity. The early development of Paris, like that of any city, can likewise be characterized by similar action. Paris’ impact on the Bièvre can be traced to the city’s founding some time around 200 BC. Geologic studies of the Seine and Bièvre flood plains where the Celtic Parisii tribes settled show that the Bièvre formerly occupied the Seine’s contemporary location

Reconstitution of Lutèce plan from the 2nd Century AD. The frames show the course of the Seine in prehistoric times before it emptied into the Bièvre’s streambed, and the derivation of the Saint-Victor Canal in the Middle Ages.(Jean-Claude Golvin (C.N.R.S)

The natural course of rivers to migrate across their flood plain is a common occurrence over time. One result of shifting riverbeds and the subsequent intersection of the Bièvre and Seine may have contributed to the formation of the Ile St.-Louis and Ile de la Cite, Paris’s birthplace. The sediment carried down the Bièvre from the hills of St. Geneviève and further south could have created these islands.

The Bièvre was not the lone stream to enter the Seine, as several others entered the city. Being situated in the center of a large sedimentary geologic and hydrographic basin, many underground springs were present.

Hydrological network of Paris before the nineteenth century

Nonetheless, as early as 180 BC, the Gallo-Romans built canals and aqueducts to bring water from the Bièvre and other stream sources 15 kilometers south of the city. They routed the water by building an aqueduct along the right bank of the Bièvre. Remains of this aqueduct are the earliest record of human interference with the natural flow of the Bièvre. The aqueduct followed the stream’s course because it was lower in elevation than the surrounding areas. Its path winded between three elevated areas: St.Genèviève, Butte aux Cailles, and Montparnasse, only one of which remain today. The topography of land adjacent to the Bièvre would remain undeveloped for centuries however, as it was prone to flooding and difficult to transform.

The Bièvre has always had a considerable watershed whose geologic and hydrogeologic situation explain the intense rises in water level. The Bièvre valley is mostly clay-based, but the hills bordering the stream bed are limestone, so the stream carries a lot of silt which gradually raises the bottom of its bed. A great deal of rainwater drains into the stream, which made its flow potentially devastating prior to modern controls. Near the stream’s source in St. Quentin Pond, the Bièvre passes through a lushly wooded valley, which remains in similar condition today. Several streams enter the Bièvre here and further along its course, which are fed by underground springs and natural water retention ponds. The relatively temperate climate with average humidity and regular precipitation keep water flowing all year round, though it varies greatly, from 10 to 1000 liters per second.

Before Paris commenced to expand rapidly, the fate of the Bièvre was unknown. The two islands in the Seine had not yet proved idyllic for the development of a city, their being repeatedly subject to invasion. Despite the Bièvre’s location outside of the developed area, it could have been used to dump refuse and to irrigate crops, similar to the way in which the Seine was used. The water was unlikely of drinking quality from very early on, as the Romans sought to direct water from the countryside. In light of this, the early history of the city reveals society’s value for clean water.

Growth and protection

The earliest known human settlement along the Bièvre is from the 3rd Century when a small Christian community established itself away from the city on the stream’s right bank. This "bourg" was along the route towards Lyon, in what became Saint Marcel in the 6th Century. The necropolis of Saint Clement, then Saint Marcel (436) is the base of a cemetery that was used from the Bas Empire (4th Century) to the High Middle Ages, making north of the bourg Saint Marcel "the land of the dead". The town of Gentilly further south appeared at the same time. Beside the cemetery, the first activity present in the area around the Bièvre was limestone quarrying. This activity dates to the Romans and continued up until the nineteenth century in and around Gentilly.

As Paris grew from Ile de la Cite to the right and left banks, human contact with the Bièvre and the marshy land that it traversed increased. The first significant human-induced changes in the Bièvre’s morphology occurred as Paris’ fortifications beyond the Ile-de-la-Cité. The construction of the first contiguous wall under King Philippe-Auguste began in 1180.

Map of encircling wall, or enceinte, of Philippe Auguste, 1180-1215

Concurrently, the presence of the Bièvre led the construction of numerous water-powered mills as early as the eleventh century. Records indicate that monks of the Saint Victor abbey relocated their flour mills to within this protected area several decades prior to the walls completion. The abbey obtained permission in 1148 to dig a three meter-wide canal from the Bièvre through their territory which would empty into the Seine further upstream, closer to Ile-de-la-Cité. This way their mills would continually benefit from the Bièvre while being protected.

Map of three confluents of the Bièvre showing original course and two canals,

one built in 1148 and the other in 1368

In 1368, water from this canal itself was diverted into a moat along the street Fossés Saint-Bernard upon decree that such trenches were necessary to fend off English invaders. The canal that they created later inspired the name for the rue de Bièvre. Such interventions in the Bièvre’s course reflect Paris’ need for protection from invasion during the 100-year war. Five more concentric walls would be built as the city expanded.

LEFT: Contemporary view up the rue de Bièvre, located in the 5th arrondissement, across from the Ile de la Cité.(Le défi d’une rivière perdue, p.56)

RIGHT: When the wall was built, a vault was created to allow the Bièvre to flow beneath it. This stone vault was built around the Bièvre during the construction of the Enceinte de Philippe Auguste (1180-1215). It was not discovered until 1991.(Jacques de Givry, La Bièvre redécouverte, p.99)

 Rise of regulation and industry

To feed the mills, the course of the Bièvre was modified along with the topography of the surrounding terrain. A dike and a several dams were built to lead the creation of two different reaches; the original stream became the Bièvre Morte (dead) and a new course of conjoined reaches that had been dug out piecemeal became the Bièvre Vive (alive). This significant change in the Bièvre’s morphology dramatically increased the amount of surface area that could be exploited by industry; the doubling of the stream was symbolic of the emergence of industrialization. This change spawned countless mills, the function of which evolved over time. First used to grind wheat, they came to also mash bark, make pulp for paper, saw wood, and beat wool or leather. The fate of the Bièvre was much more certain than several centuries ago; its utility had been discovered. Society’s placement of value on production of goods for consumption had emerged.

The doubling of the Bièvre set the stage for rapid development and its transformation predicated the need for regulation. The earliest recorded land-use ruling (1226) required that all bridges on the Bièvre be one lone arch, without pilings in the water so that the width always remained three meters across. This was likely intended to ensure the safe passage of refuse. In 1336, a decree obliged all activities (butchers, tanners, etc.) to relocate outside the city walls; forcing them to move further back along the banks towards the faubourg St Marcel.

In 1443, the clothes dyer and scarlet merchant Jean Gobelin located his atelier in a house on the rue Mouffetard. This street had already become associated with the Bièvre prior to Gobelin’s arrival, as its name has malodorous implications (a mouffette is a skunk). The merchant nonetheless developed a process permitting him to obtain exceptional dyes, leading his family enterprise to acquire an international reputation. His success attracted numerous other dyers, and in 1601 Henri IV invited two renowned Flemish dyers to locate near the Gobelins. Other businesses followed, as tanning and dying activities continued moving back from the city, away from the Seine, which had become too polluted by the mid-fifteenth century. In 1667, Minister of Finance Colbert founded the royal manufacturing plant of furniture and tapestries which became the Manufacture des Gobelins of the crown. This plant assumed a supervisory role in the industrial vocation of the Bièvre until the nineteenth century.

Rendering on left by Fraipont and postcard image on right show the canalized Bièvre being used by the Manufacture des Gobelins and others industries around 1900

As early as 1570, the first part of the Bièvre canal was covered due to its foul odor. Fluctuations in water level permitted refuse to collect for weeks before being washed along the stream’s course. This problem would repeatedly resurface over the next few centuries as the result of poor water management practices. Drainage problems led to a royal ordinance in 1669 prohibiting all industries to drain their dirty water and materials into the stream. In 1672, a royal decree obliged all dyers and tanners to relocate to Saint Marcel and in 1678, the connection of latrines to the Bièvre was outlawed. Regulations were created to improve the quality of the built environment through which the Bièvre took its course. In 1728, the height of buildings along the Bièvre was limited in order to favor the circulation of air. In 1743, an annual service was created to clean the stream by removing mud and deposits from its bed. By the eighteenth century, numerous kinds of work were taking place in the area: tanners, shoemakers, dyers, laundry workers, weavers, brewers, and manufacturers.

The Absolute Monarch and development in the countryside

Paris’ expansion endured through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the monarchy was at its most powerful in history. The built forms of each king are representative of the prevailing cultural attitudes of the time, yet society’s values were far from those of the king. The grand projects like the Versailles Palace of Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to 1715 and proclaimed himself the "absolute monarch", testify to this divergence.

At a time of poor working conditions and limited resources, the supply of water to industry was diminished by the completion of the Arcueil aqueduct in 1624. This lessened the amount of water that the Bièvre supplied to Paris since the aqueduct took water from the Rungis stream, which fed the Bièvre. Water was diverted from the Bièvre to Versailles so as to supply Louis XIV’s immense palace fountains. Another aqueduct was built from this location to bring water to the Luxembourg Palace. The fate of the Bièvre was in the hands of a hegemonic king who wanted all the country’s resources for his own glorification. Louis XIV took the power of the king to another level, equivalent to that experienced in Lutecia under the Romans. The implications of his actions would set a precedent for future French leaders’ resolve for establishing what society should value.

Arcueil aqueduct: built in the seventeenth century to take water from the Vanne (stream feeding into the Bièvre) to the fountains of Versailles (Jacques de Givry,La Bièvre redécouverte, p.72)

In order for the mill owners to continue their business, they worked to increase water flow from the source in the Yvelines by connecting it to other ponds. Until the fifteenth century, most forests surrounding the Bièvre’s source had been cleared for abbeys. A painting from the thirteenth century shows how the beaver was completely eradicated from the region.

"TheHunt for the Beaver," thirteenth century painting (La Bièvre: Le défi d’une rivière perdue, p.175)

Used for their fur, their glands, and their skin, beavers were popular game. Hunting continued on these lands when Louis XIII built a small hunting lodge near the present Versailles palace’s location. In the late seventeenth century, the Court of Louis XIV and his entourage used the neighboring woods of Beech, Sessile Oak, and Pine for the sport of hunting. The woods were also used by coalminers who came for chestnut trees to burn wood every 25 years. This is why there remains a path called "the path of the coalminers". The Revolution in 1789 left similar souvenirs in the Bièvre Valley in the names of streets and plazas.

Oberkampf Textile Manufacture, Jouy-en-Josas (La Bièvre: Le défi d’une rivière perdue, p.29)

Industry also developed here as far as 20 kilometers outside of Paris. In Jouy-en-Joses, Christophe Oberkampf established a huge textile manufacturer that, like the Gobelins, used the tinted water of the Bièvre to dye canvas. From 1760 to 1843, Oberkampf was one of the few manufacturers to employ over 2500 workers in the Bièvre Valley [Figure 13]. Upon closing, the family used its wealth to develop the vicinity. Its proximity to Versailles attracted many famous and talented people to the Bièvre Valley in the nineteenth century as a place of refuge and retirement. Victor Hugo, who spent his summers here from 1826 to 57, wrote in "Leaves of Autumn":

Oui, c'est bien le vallon ! le vallon calme et sombre !

Yes, it’s nice the small valley ! the calm and somber valley!
Ici l'été plus frais s'épanouit à l'ombre.

Here the cooler summer lightens up the shade.
Ici durent longtemps les fleurs qui durent peu.

Here flowers that last little last for a long time.
Ici l'âme contemple, écoute, adore, aspire,

Here the soul contemplates, listens, adores, aspires,
Et prend pitié du monde, étroit et fol empire

And takes pity on the world, narrow and crazy empire
Où l'homme tous les jours fait moins de place à Dieu

Where man makes less space for God every day.

The state of the Bièvre here, in the high valley, was cherished; its banks and water had not been corrupted. Upper class society sought to protect it, which resonates today. In the words of one of the Bièvre’s historians, "No landscape has been more delicately humanized than this one of the Bièvre". Even the numerous lavoirs, or wash houses, which employed hundreds of women along the stream’s banks, did not disturb the bucolic atmosphere of the area. Many of these buildings are today classified as Monuments Historiques.

1901 Postcard of Lavoi, or wash house, on the Bièvre, Antony

Haussmannization and the Germ Theory of Disease

The ensemble of industrial activities along the Bièvre spawned an increasingly unacceptable level of pollution at a time when theories about human health and sanitation were developing. Different measures were proposed by an engineer named Hallé in 1789 to ameliorate the conditions of life around the Bièvre valley: to displace the mills, render the stream’s incline more uniform, cover the open sewers, pave the river bed and dredge it monthly, among others. One of Hallé’s pupils, Parent Dutchatelet, sought to apply his ideas in 1822 by suggesting the canalization of the Bièvre in order to increase the speed of its flow and the creation of reservoirs upstream to flush the system (chasse d’eau). The municipality voted in favor of canalization in 1826, which began two years later. Of the two arms of the canalized stream, all but three sections of each arm were conserved. While the tanners continued to oppress the agony of the water, the protestors signed petitions for public hygiene. This was the century of progress.

Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory of Disease is regarded as the single most important contribution to medical science and practice; its contribution to Paris’ form was comparatively noteworthy. The theory and Pasteur’s subsequent work on silk worm bacteria for the textile industry were very influential on the future of the Bièvre. By proving the existence of bacteria, he led the way towards hygienic practice, even among the bourgeoisie by the end of the nineteenth century who also acknowledged their susceptibility to potential epidemics. Followed by a petition in 1875 of resident complaints, a commission concluded that it was necessary to cover over the stream in order to hide the effects of industry and the sewers.

Meanwhile developments in Paris’s sewer system were progressing rapidly under the new Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, who sought to open up Paris for reasons of preventing disease and revolution. Involved in every urban planning intervention in Paris from 1850 to 1870, Haussmann’s impact on the Bièvre was tremendous. No intervention affected the Bièvre’s course in the nineteenth century greater than that of the sewer system’s expansion.

Bras Mort, or Dead Arm of the Bièvre: View of sign in underground sewer

where Bièvre Morte was interred within the égouts de Paris

The Paris sewer system began as early as 1350 and by 1824 there were already 37 kilometers of sewers, but they clogged and prevented water flow. 1824 brought improvement however, when engineers from the engineering school Ponts et Chaussées started a revolution in sewer design by proposing cheaper construction with the use of thinner tiles. Haussmann oversaw the installation of several collectors, or main sewers, into which all sewers flowed. His new sewer system was Roman in inspiration: it was based on an enormous collector which would bring all the city’s sewers, from both banks of the Seine, to a central convergence point at the Place de la Concorde. This involved a complex system of siphonage with tubes resting on the riverbed. From Concorde the collector would then travel nine miles to the northwest of the city before rejoining the Seine. In 1851 the first collector was built, followed by an ordinance in 1852 declaring that all new construction dispose of storm water. By 1859, the city boasted 179 km of sewers, 228 including the annexed faubourgs. It was vastly expanded in the nineteenth century by engineer-hygienists supported by the government.

Concerns over hygiene were on the rise as work on the derivation of the Bièvre got underway. Inside the wall des Fermiers Généraux, the Bièvre had already been canalized so it could easily be covered. Outside the walls, its configuration was that of a natural stream, and this necessitated a more complicated approach. Belgrand, Haussmann’s chief engineer, diverted the water to the Collector of the Bièvre which also captured water from storm water from the left bank. The Bièvre Morte was mixed with the sewers while the Bièvre Vive was diverted alone in the gallery of the rue des Peupliers, and then canalized in a tube of only 40 centimeters in diameter into the Collector of the Rue Vergniaud that mixes with the sewers in Corvisart. The two reaches were made to converge again at rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire where they could empty into the General Collector of the Left Bank. The first works took place from 1877 to 1880, but the 1881 construction of another main sewer replaced the most important segment of the stream.

The Turn of the Century

The writing of Josef Huymans appropriately characterizes the fate of the Bièvre in the eyes of a turn of the century Parisian. His sentiments reflect the state of the Bièvre at the time, but also foresee a future in which the Bièvre will not return to its bucolic state.

"And yet, how different the old Bièvre was from this degraded and pathetic slave! Ecclesiastical and feudal, it flowed alongside the convent of the Grey Sisters, crossed the great Rue Saint-Marceau, then streamed across fields under willow trees, suddenly splitting, and ran parallel to the Seine, descending into the enclosure of the abbey of Saint-Victor, bathing the feet of the old cloister, and passed through orchards and woods, joining forces with the main river near the Porte de la Tournelle"

His use of the word slave in this passage to portray the Bièvre is consistent with other descriptions in which he blames profit-seeking man for corrupting the stream.

"From now onward, the Bièvre has disappeared, for at the end of Rue des Cordelières, modern Paris begins. Having been closed up in interminable confinement, it now appears, just barely, in the meadows and the open air. Once a country lass, stifled in the tunnels, it comes to light to draw breath in the midst of the blocks of buildings which crush it. The obsession with gain and an unlimited rage are against her once more."

Huysman’s words reveal a great deal about himself as a naturalist, but also about the condition in which one might find the Bièvre at this time. His writing makes the reader cherish the stream in its natural condition, before the loss of its ecological functions.

Postcard image of 100-year flood (Association Exposition Bièvre, www.bievre.org) 1910 view of main sewer, or collector, installation at Poterne des Peupliers, or "back door of the poplars" at the periphery of Paris (La Bièvre: Le défi d’une rivière perdue, p.122)

A 100-year flood in 1910 devastated many parts of the city and its outskirts. In response to this, several large underground detention basins were incorporated into the sewer system. In addition, the final Parisian segment of the Bièvre was interred with the addition of the collector at Poterne des Peupliers. The detention basins and collectors were mechanized systems intended to efficiently carry and store water. Although carefully engineered, they did not utilize many aspects of the natural environment. One detention basin, at Arcueil, was built to hold 24,000 cubic meters of water in preparation for the 100-year flood. Last segments of the Bièvre were covered up as late as the 1950s outside Paris.

Although the first annexation by Paris of its outer suburbs occurred in 1704, the towns adjacent to the Bièvre were not incorporated until the later half of the nineteenth century. The annexation of Gentilly in 1859 signified Paris’s continuing expansion. This annexation under Haussmann further reflects the sovereignty of the Prefect of the Seine. Land used by small industries selling ice, glace, and by ice skaters for recreation coined the name Glacière for a frozen wasteland filled for development upon its inclusion in Paris. Slowly, small industries along the Bièvre were pushed further outside the city as speculative real estate encroached. From 1867 to 1869, grand boulevards were built to open the faubourg Saint-Marcel and permit the passage of troops. Streets required filling in the Bièvre Valley as the surrounding territory that needed to be spanned was at a different elevation the covered stream bed.

The stream in these parts remained largely uncovered through the earlier party of the twentieth century. As urbanization progressed, however, the stream was canalized in 1930 to improve its rate of flow. By eliminating its meandering course, the stream’s descent was strengthened permitting the water to flow faster. At this point the stream was no longer a stream, but a hydraulic work. Along its path, a pipe was installed to collect wastewater from the surrounding area. With the increased amount of water entering the Paris sewer system, the Bièvre spillway was built in 1935 to carry water to the Seine. As the quality of water continued to degrade over time due to urbanization, the canalized section of the Bièvre from Antony to Paris was covered with concrete slabs in the 1950s. The continued management of the Bièvre in the suburbs involved the construction of two retention basins and the Fresnes-Rungis-Choisy le Roi Collector in 1971. All works realized at this time aimed to reconfigure the Bièvre and its watershed to the greatest degree of control.

With the destruction of neighborhoods proclaimed to be blighted, the city of Paris began an intensive urban renewal program in the 1960s. An urban renewal development called "Ilot Bièvre" in the 14th arrondissement replaced a "pigsty" and "unhealthy" mix of former industrial buildings with a group of high-rise residential buildings surrounded by open space. There is no longer any indication that the Bièvre runs right underneath this complex. Although this development occurred over 50 years after the Bièvre was covered in Paris, its approach is consistent with the turn-of-the-century mentality of subjugating the streambed.

While the Bièvre’s eradication was complete by the mid-twentieth century in Paris and its immediate suburbs, its future had only been partially threatened further west. Naturally, suburbanization arrived more slowly further from Paris. The 1920s brought the new planning laws and electrification along the Sceaux line, provoking a proliferation of housing subdivisions all the way to Igny. From 1950 to 1980, urbanization exploded with the construction of high-density housing complexes from Gentilly to Massy. At the same time, the Regional Counsel of Ile-de-France’s creation of a regional plan in 1965 aimed to manage the regions burgeoning population by concentrating it in five new towns. Among them, the development of the new town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines has been developing since 1970. Development has also taken place on the Massy plain to the immediate south of Paris, which incorporates part of the Bièvre Valley. The creation of a regional transit system (RER) facilitated this expansion. The Bièvre Valley was transformed rapidly with the creation of heavy infrastructures, notably trains and highways. While the valley has been late to urbanize, it has not been late to take precautionary measures to prevent the kind of destruction wrought in Paris. The upper valley is consequently far ahead of the city in terms of its restoration plans for the Bièvre, which will be examined in Chapter Three.

Exploitation and Demise of Ecological Functions

The environmental history of the Bièvre can be seen as a reflection of larger cultural forces over time; the result of a culture with no value for the ecological functions of a flowing stream. The Bièvre’s fate has changed repeatedly; diverted, doubled, canalled, covered, all while being subject to varying amounts of water flow and pollution. Although it appears as though a new era of environmental awareness where such activities are discouraged has begun, it remains to be seen whether enough ambition exists to reverse the damages of past interventions. Despite the lack of precedent for the restoration of a stream in a nearly unrecoverable state, such a project is underway along the Bièvre.

The following image maps the traces of the Bièvre in Paris’s 5th and 13th arrondissements, which reflect the stream’s state at the end of the time period discussed in this chapter. (Caption: Traces of the Bièvre, galleries, sewers and separation walls of streamside property constructed within the form streambeds. From Renaud Gagneux and Jean Anckaert, Sur les Traces de la Bièvre Parisienne)